Turkey: Judicial Personnel

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Balfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the detention and removal from office of judicial personnel in Turkey.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, we strongly condemn the attempted coup on 15 July. Subsequently, the Turkish Government have suspended 3,688 judges and prosecutors, of whom 2,847 have been sacked. More than 600 are in pretrial detention. We have urged the Turkish Government to respect due process and the rule of law, including when the Minister for Europe and the Americas visited Turkey in July. The Turkish Government have assured us they recognise the importance of this.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer. I think we all accept that the judiciary and military in Turkey have played an important part in building the modern state. Having looked at the speed with which these lists were drawn up, many of us question whether they were not drawn up before the coup. Will the Government undertake to press the Turkish Government to justify in all these cases why it is so necessary to lock up such a large number of the middle class?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we should recall that the attempted coup, which I expect noble Lords may have seen on television, was indeed an extremely dangerous security moment for Turkey and the region. We have, of course, maintained our conversation with the Turkish Government about the importance of having a proportionate response. We continue to call for due process to be followed and human rights respected. However, it was right that my right honourable friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas went as soon as possible after 15 July to offer what support the UK might give to the Turkish Government.

Brexit: Case for a Second Referendum

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may take up a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown. The reason it was put into the German constitution was that Prime Minister Attlee pointed out that referenda were the tools of Hitler and Mussolini. That constitution was drawn up during the Labour Government of 1945.

Before the referendum, the question was quite simple. It was: what might happen? The people decided that they would find out. That is what they voted for—to find out what might happen if we left the European Union: if we triggered Article 50 and negotiated. For well over 30 years, I have had an Irish passport. One tradition of Ireland is that if people give you the wrong result, you go back and ask them again. On this occasion, I do not think that we can quite do that, but when the negotiations are over, probably in 2019—we have not even started them yet—the question will change. Then, it will be: what will happen if we accept these terms and withdraw? There will be a number of different scenarios.

First, immigration and our membership of the EU are not quite as closely linked as we think. More than half the people who come into Britain do so on visas issued by British embassies around the world. We will find it increasingly difficult in a shrinking world to control migration—that is a prediction—and it will not be seen as an EU matter. As discussions continue, we will find a whole range of problems. I do not think that we will be united in this House or in the political fora on how we face them or on what is acceptable. It is also possible that at the end of the negotiations the Government will say, “Well, we’re sorry, we can’t recommend this package to you. We have not been able to get a package that is acceptable for us to say that it is sensible to leave”. So we should not deny that all sorts of scenarios are possible.

I say to my friends sitting opposite—and a number of them are friends—that if they could manage to find themselves a decent leader, I could well see the Labour Party campaigning at the next election to scrap the renegotiation on the grounds that it is just driving into the sand. The Liberal party, which has a long and historic record of support for Europe, might well go to the public at the next election and say, “Actually, we think you got it wrong”. So we may have another referendum, but it may be called a general election and the parties may be on different sides.

Turkey

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I certainly support the noble Lord in his wish to put the record straight, which he has done. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it clear yesterday that although we continue to support Turkey’s accession process, at its current rate of knots it is not going to achieve accession until the year 3000—and along the way every single other member of the European Union, which includes us at the moment, has the right of veto.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, can representations be made about the increasing authoritarianism we see in Ankara these days, in particular the threats to the HDP which arise from the recent lifting of parliamentary immunity? Can the Minister also confirm that things are not helped when it seems that confidential telegrams from our embassy in Ankara are leaked to the press? Will the Government review the level of security governing the telegrams going to and from Ankara?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to draw attention to the issue of lifting parliamentary immunity for MPs. I understand that President Erdogan signed that measure into law last week, and it is a matter of concern: after all, in any modern democracy a candidate for EU accession should be expected to undertake legal processes transparently and to fully respect the law. I hope they do so in these cases. Regarding leaks, in this particular case, of course, it was a selective leak. The fact is that if the rest of the material had been published—I do not encourage that because these are confidential matters—it would have shown that the Government’s policy is and will remain to maintain current visa requirements for all Turkish nationals wishing to visit the UK, regardless of what arrangements other member states in the Schengen area may make for Turkey. Diplomatic telegrams, by their very nature, are a way in which our experts overseas advise the Government here of what is happening in the Governments there—it is not about UK policy.

EU Foreign and Security Strategy (EUC Report)

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I join many speakers in thanking the chairman for his wise chairmanship. He will get two sets of thanks because he will be back with another final report next week. My experience of the chairman goes right back to 1979, when I was part of the group that overturned the European Parliament budget, so ably introduced by the then budget commissioner, Christopher Tugendhat. I also welcome my noble friend Lady Morris, a distinguished contributor to our party’s foreign policy and who I know will be a good successor.

I want to make a few points of administration first and then a few points about Russia. A number of speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Desai, mentioned 28 policies. Of course there are not 28 foreign policies, there are three or four foreign policies and then 20 to 24 followers of foreign policies. There are some major actors, but we must realise that most of the countries of the European Union see in the development of a common foreign and security policy an opportunity for them to maximise an influence which for many of them is pitifully small at the moment. It is small because they do not have the resources. They do not have the embassies, the money or the staff.

We as a big player may be driving policies forward, but for many other countries our influence rests not only on being in the European Union—which seems to be more or less a consensus—but on acting within the European Union in such a way that we become one of the three or four major countries that other nations want to support and move forward with. That can and has been done, and we have been a very successful actor in that. However, it helps to recognise that the work done by Commissioner Mogherini and, before her, Commissioner Ashton has been both distinguished and for our benefit. It is something that we can build on. We can maximise our direction by working strongly within the CFSP strategy.

My next point picks up on a comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, on the very important issue of staff. The atmosphere that Britain has projected in recent years is not one that has made young and able people want to go and work in the European Union. They look at the hostility to the EU that has come out of this country over the past few years—I will not put a dividing number on it—and say, “No; I might not have a career in a few years’ time”. I was talking today to a friend in Brussels who said of some members of the British Labour Party there that, “Quite a few of them are looking to take out Belgian nationality”. We have got ourselves into a mess. We have a situation, confirmed this week, whereby the President of the European Parliament is a German, the Secretary-General of the European Parliament is a German and the new Deputy Secretary-General, appointed just this week, is also a German. For the first time in the history of the European Parliament, all three of the top posts are in the hands of one country. I am not saying it is a country that is hostile to us, but I do not think it is good that we have withdrawn to the extent that we have from involvement and from encouraging our brightest and our best.

The final policy point I want to make is this: I am surprised at the lack of interaction between this Parliament —I include both Houses—and our democratically elected Members of the European Parliament. We send them there; we give them a mandate; our parties put forward manifestos; we knock on doors to get them into the European Parliament; and then we forget them. We have to involve them more. In particular, I mention two names—Charles Tannock from my party and Richard Howitt from the Labour Party—who are widely and deeply respected Members of the European Parliament. They have influence well beyond being “the Brits”, but they are seldom seen or counselled. In fact if you want to bring them into the building the first thing you have to do is get them through the door.

I remember Caroline Jackson, a Conservative Member of the European Parliament, chair of the Environment Committee of the European Parliament and a leading figure in the European Parliament, who said to me, “Well Richard, I have far more rights as Robert Jackson MP’s wife than I do as chairman of the committee in the European Parliament”. I just mention that. We have to sort it out.

I want to say just a few words on Russia. We have somehow to get a dialogue going again. We are in a situation not dissimilar to where we were before Helsinki. Relations are bad, there are many things that we want and many things that the Russians want. One thing we should be looking at is getting them back into some sort of relationship with the Council of Europe. The situation makes no sense. Okay, they have been suspended, but there is no strategy for how they get back, except that we say they have to withdraw from Ukraine. They are not going to do that. We have to work out a strategy for dealing with them.

Many of the surrounding countries have been mentioned. I shall not go through them all but will mention one or two. The Baltic states are a key point, but they themselves must also realise that a fairer treatment of the Russian minorities is needed. They have to get to a position whereby the Russian minorities in those three Baltic states say, “Aren’t we lucky we live here?”, not “Oh God, we can’t vote”. I was in Latvia last year and the Russian party in the Latvian Parliament is basically a social democratic party. It is excluded from government by all of the other parties from the far right to the far left. The only thing they have in common is that they are Latvian parties and will not do a deal with the Russians.

That is not the way to run a democracy. The Baltic states, in return for our support—I believe that we can give them support—must learn to play the proper democratic game of involvement. They have to give their Russian population a reason for wanting to be there. They are now addressing the NATO concerns of 2% defence expenditure. I am afraid that one of the points that comes out of this report is the idiocy of this division that we are somehow a European Sub-Committee but we cannot look at defence. Defence, NATO and the EU are so intertwined that it is very difficult to say, “Well, you can’t look at troop movements but you can look at cybersecurity”. So, one of the challenges for our new Madam Chairman will be to work out somehow how we can slightly expand the terms of reference.

My final comments are on Turkey. The words “strategic disarray” were mentioned, and that is absolutely right. Turkey is in crisis. It has 3 million refugees on its hands and its Government are not sure whether they believe in democracy, to put it bluntly. Or, they are not sure how much they believe in democracy—let us put it that way. It has elections—it has fair elections—but it also has a structure of government that has a very weak opposition where there has effectively been one-party rule for the last 12 years. I have always said that once you are in power for 10 years you go mad. We have plenty of British precedents for that. I hope that we will manage to find an accommodation with Turkey that keeps it onside. I would much rather have our boundaries in Turkey than a bit closer to home. Turkey is another big challenge for us and I hope it is one we can rise to.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always good to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. He and I have been friends for many years. I find myself in so much agreement with so many of the wise things he says. It is terribly sad that he left our party. It was a serious loss.

[Lord Balfe]

I am not coming back.

[Lord Judd]

I read this report and thought, “That’s a good report”. I then read it again and said to myself, “That is a very good report—a particularly great report and of great significance”. The House owes a very real tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, and his colleagues.

It has been delightful to sit and listen to this intelligent debate about the realities of the world when we are surrounded by this introspective, vicious, unimaginative, vindictive debate on whether we stay in Europe. That depresses me beyond measure. One of the things that depresses me most about that debate—others have referred to this—is that whether we like it or not the first reality of life, from the day we are born, is that we are locked into a global community. We cannot escape that. History and succeeding generations will judge us by the success we make of handling that reality. We will not solve the issues or meet the challenges by running away. From that standpoint, the debate about our future in Europe, or so much of it so far, has been disastrous.

That interdependence is obviously there in economics, on issues of the climate, and on migration. On migration, we have to keep remembering that what we face today is probably child’s play compared with what we will have to face as the impact of climate change begins to accelerate. We are all told that that interdependence is there in trade, but it is also there very clearly in security. When I was on the EU home affairs sub-committee we listened to witnesses on the issue of our future if we were to withdraw from the Community and certainly from the European Convention on Human Rights. We could not find a witness—it was almost impossible to find one—who was working in the sphere with real responsibility on behalf of us all who did not say that it would be madness to leave, because all these issues demand co-operation. How will we handle them better if we are on our own? The question was put about the fact that we know—it is true, in many respects—that our intelligence services, for example, are not matched by the quality of intelligence services in much of Europe.

I was impressed that these people, working in the heart of the issue on our behalf, were all saying, “Surely that is a challenge to us to strengthen them”. It is not a challenge not to join them, because you are only as strong as your weakest link. In this realm, where everything is so closely interlinked, if there are weak links our job is to strengthen them. I do not like putting it in melodramatic language but I really mean this as a grandfather: I am afraid that we are betraying our younger generation in much of this debate about being in or out of Europe.

All of us in this House have been shocked, grieved and deeply troubled by the sight of drowning refugees and especially deeply hurt and worried by the sight of drowning children. The words of John Donne echo in my ears all the time:

“never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.

The biggest challenge in this dreadful story is: where is our own sense of values? The world has seen a Europe led by Britain preoccupied with keeping people out, instead of a Europe led by Britain saying, “These are the issues of the future. These are the issues we must face. How do we work together in finding lasting strategic solutions?”.

Of course, I read carefully what the report said about concentrating on our immediate neighbouring region. There is no shortage of issues there. Turkey will be immensely important. We simply must work out a sensible future with Turkey. Personally, I feel that having offered Turkey membership, the impact of withdrawing that offer could be horrific. Turkey is the meeting point of Islamic and Christian civilisations. Surely it is essential to work with Turkey and find the way forward. In the Middle East, all the issues we face are still profoundly, in emotion and attitude, part of the ongoing story of the Israel/Arab issue. That is unresolved. It always seems that if we are real friends of Israel—I regard myself as such—we have a huge job in Europe to point out in absolutely categorical, unapologetic terms what her policies do towards aggravating the situation. Collectively in Europe, we must do everything we can to bring pressure on Israel to behave in a way that will make a secure future for her children possible rather than to pursue her current policies, which provoke nothing but insecurity and danger for her future generations.

There are also the issues of north Africa, of Syria and of Libya. In Europe, as we—I still hope—face the future together, we must learn to snap out of this attitude of trying to find management solutions for crises of this kind. You cannot simply manage a solution in this area. The confidence of the people in what solutions you offer as management programmes is just not there. You must build confidence with the people. Whatever happens as a way forward in both Libya and Syria, there has to be a future which rests on local realities and comprises real reconciliation and real understanding between the very different historical links in the historical traditions and associations in both communities.

Russia has been talked about a lot. For four years I was the rapporteur to the Council of Europe during the ghastly conflict in Chechnya. I visited the conflict area 11 times and met the most senior Ministers in Russia, the FSB and the rest nine times. I came to see that Chechnya could not be approached as just Chechnya because Chechnya was symptomatic of the issues in Russia. The same underlying arrogance, whatever its cause, led to the ghastly things that happened in London. We cannot forget that. We had Russian agents trailing radioactive poison across our capital, quite apart from the brutality and horror of the murder itself. We have to work at finding ways forward with Russia but let us be realistic about what we are up against and look at our own responsibility for the missed opportunities with Russia after the fall of totalitarian communism, and at the failure to build a positive political programme towards Russia—even perhaps the willingness to consider a joint security pact for the future.

One feels anxious to say much more following such an excellent report. However, I confine myself to the following. I honestly believe that many of the challenges and difficulties that we face stem from the crisis within our own value system. What is it that we really believe in? We talk about western civilisation and our values but what are those values? We must have a real debate with Europe on reinventing and strengthening our concept of responsibility, particularly humanitarian responsibility, and on how we believe that we can build a strong society. Of course, human rights will be absolutely central to that debate.

I again thank the committee for having produced such a thoughtful and encouraging report. I pray that we get it right on 23 June. But when we have got it right on 23 June, there will be one hell of a challenge. The first part of that challenge is to belong to the Community to which we have reasserted our membership, because it is by belonging, and being seen to belong, that we begin to influence events. If we are seen as the awkward, reluctant customers all the time, what kind of influence will we ever have?

EU: Turkish Membership

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I happened to speak to my honourable friend Penny Mordaunt about an hour ago, and I reassured her of my admiration for her in all the work she does as Minister for the Armed Forces. Indeed, I am just about to issue a joint op-ed with her regarding the ceremony at the Cenotaph earlier today. I was disappointed that she was perhaps misinformed by one of the campaign groups about the powers of the United Kingdom. It is clear that, when Turkey is on the path to EU accession, it will face the fact that the UK, as all other member states, possesses a veto against its accession if it cannot achieve the standards needed to be a member of the EU.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I point out that successive Governments of all political colours have supported Turkey’s application. Part of the accession negotiations could obviously cover a derogation on free movement that could put it off for a number of years. I will be in Ankara next week, at the Turkish Parliament. Can I assure them that Her Majesty’s Government’s position remains the same?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The position remains exactly as I outlined in my Answer: we see the EU accession process as the most effective way to encourage reform, stability and democracy in Turkey. Turkey has to meet the EU norms—the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and competition rules—to be effective.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, referenda in the UK, as we all know, are a fairly new innovation. The first time in modern history that a referendum was used was in 1975, and their use was opposed quite vigorously by both Attlee and Churchill. They only came into being in 1975—the noble Lord, Lord Radice, gave us a very good history lesson earlier—to get the Labour Party off the hook, because it was deeply divided at that time. One part of the party wanted to be in, and the other part wanted to be out. Harold Wilson, who still stands high in my pantheon of former Labour Prime Ministers, went along with this suggestion, which I do not think he believed in for a minute. He went along with it, however, and the Labour Party—if I remember correctly—came up with the slogan, “Not on Tory terms”, without actually specifying what terms would be acceptable, because that did at least solve the immediate problem that the ones on offer were not acceptable.

I have always disputed the complaint that we are somehow in something that we were not promised. In fact, the whole 1975 referendum campaign, in my part of London, was about what this campaign is about: Brussels. I remember listening to people like Tony Benn and Enoch Powell saying exactly what is being said today—that Brussels would somehow run things. In the end, we had to come to a conclusion, and overall we came to a very clear conclusion in 1975. I can help my noble friend Lord Lawson, who earlier seemed to be searching for a slogan to show that there was something beyond Europe. From history, I commend to him the slogan of the Morning Star in 1975:

“No to a bosses’ Europe; yes to a workers’ world”.

That was meant to show that there was something beyond Europe that was vital and worth us getting.

The difference, of course, as has been said, is that the 1974-75 renegotiation was not the same as the present one: things are now very different. Today’s renegotiation, to be quite honest—which we seem to be in this House at the moment—is also to get the Government off the hook. It is as simple as that. The country is divided; there is a feeling that after 40 years, perhaps we should revisit this and have another go, but in fact, the options are far more limited today. There is really no option for any sensible person other than to maintain, and somehow build on, our relationship with Europe. The debate is about how we influence what we have got. Moreover, this is not the first renegotiation: Mrs Thatcher negotiated our terms in Europe much more fundamentally than this renegotiation will.

One of the delights of a long career in politics is that you can look back to all of the positions you have held—in my case, many have changed over the years—and at the changes in the parties’ positions. When Mrs Thatcher did her renegotiation, the Conservative Party was 100% in favour of Europe. I was in the European Parliament at that time. There was an odd little group called the H-block, led, if I remember correctly, by the late Brian Hord. They were in favour of something different, but overall, the Conservative Party was strongly in favour. The Labour Party was more divided. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, has gone, because it was actually he who turned the Labour Party round more than anyone else. Of all the achievements to which he can lay claim, the foremost was that he was prepared to grasp the question by the throat and he turned the Labour Party round.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned the negotiation by John Major to get Britain out of the social chapter. That was a really brilliant negotiation. Of course, what he conceded was that into the treaty went Strasbourg as the seat of the European Parliament. Tony Blair came into power and said, “We’re going into the social chapter”. The other countries said, “Fine. If you want to, we’ll amend the treaty”. I do not think France is going to say, “We’ll abandon Strasbourg” quite as easily, so be careful what concessions you give along the way.

I shall mention a couple of things concerning the present Bill, neutrally rather than hostilely. The British electorate are a jumble. Frankly, when citizens in Malta, Cyprus and half of Gibraltar can vote, but people who have worked in Britain for 20 years and who happen to have a French passport cannot, we are in an area of lunacy. The only advice I would give is that they should change their nationality. They still have time to do it. I am very willing to give any European Union citizen a quick course on how to change their nationality to become a good Brit, and be able to vote in our referendum. It is actually not very hard if you have a clean record and have been here for a bit of time. My advice to them is to get on board.

On the voting age, have we not got into a mess? We seem to have one age for one set of elections and another age for another set. I say to the Minister and my colleagues that we had better get something sorted out, because what we have does not make sense. We have a very odd collection of different ages. I would not go for 16, but since it seems that half of elections nowadays go for 16, I will restrict myself to saying, “Please sort it out”.

At the end of this debate, we are going to have to decide. I predict a rerun of 1975. I think the establishments of all the major parties will be saying vote yes, and the two outer wings will say vote no. Who are going to be the latter-day successors to J Enoch Powell and AW Benn? I am not going to start speculating. I can think of their names, but I predict that it will be like that. If I remember rightly, only Orkney and the Shetland Islands voted no in the previous referendum. There might be a few more no votes this time, perhaps some in Northern Ireland, because it has a habit of spiting itself. Some places might vote no, but overall I predict there will be an overwhelming yes vote. The TUC has indicated it is onside, as has the CBI. We have set up an all-party campaign, and I am working with my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, across the aisle, to deliver Cambridge, one small but important city, for the yes vote. I look forward to getting a yes vote, getting this passed in some form or other and getting on with the job of being good partners in Europe.

Turkey

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the position in the south-eastern town of Cizre, and clearly there are serious circumstances there. From 4 to 12 September the Government imposed a curfew in Cizre. It is important in Turkey, as in any democracy, that elections are free and fair and pass without incident. We have made it clear that the PKK needs to stop its attacks and that the peace process must be resumed immediately. This is in everyone’s interests—it is in the interests of the Government as well as of the PKK and other groups in the wider region. We are following the election process, as we do in any EU candidate country. Monitoring by Turkish parties and civil society is even more important. The UK plans to send two British observers to join the OSCE election observation mission. Practical steps are being taken.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, notwithstanding the considerable achievements of the AKP Government over the past 13 years, the holding of fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power is what defines a democracy. It is apparent to many people outside that the opposition parties in Turkey are not having their rights as rigorously defended as is necessary for a country to be regarded as a full democracy. Will the noble Baroness, through the EU political co-operation procedure and through our embassy, emphasise to the Turkish Government that her friends are looking very carefully at the way in which these elections are conducted?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I agree with every word that my noble friend said. I listened, and I will make sure that his message is amplified through our EU partners.

G20: Turkish Presidency

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Balfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support the main aims of the Turkish Presidency of the G20 in 2015.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, we support the Turkish presidency’s priorities of inclusiveness, implementation and investment, and particularly welcome the focus on the implementation of previous G20 commitments. We are liaising closely with the Turkish presidency, and are actively involved in all the G20 working groups, including co-chairing the Energy Sustainability Working Group. A UK official is seconded directly to support the Turkish G20 presidency team.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her reply. As she says, the Turkish presidency is founded on the three “i”s of inclusiveness, implementation and investment, and these aim to ensure that the benefits of growth and prosperity are shared. Indeed, it has been estimated that if all the plans already endorsed by the G8 were carried out, some 2% would be added to the world’s GDP. Can the Minister outline how the Government will work to help the Turkish presidency achieve these aims?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we are at the forefront of implementing a series of commitments. For example, on anti-corruption the UK Anti-Corruption Plan published in December 2014 clearly sets out more than 60 actions for tackling corruption domestically and internationally. My second example is the automatic exchange of tax information, of which the UK is an early implementer, with the first exchange expected in 2017.

European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Association Agreement) (Georgia) Order 2015

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the measured and moderate way in which she spoke about these agreements. She will recall that, in a previous life, she appointed me as one of our delegates to the Council of Europe. Since that time, I have managed to become the chairman of the sub-committee on the application of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, where I am privileged to have a Georgian as my vice-chair. I want to take up the point that has been made about not getting too much crossover between the legitimate job of the European Court of Human Rights and that of the European Commission and its annual report.

I speak from long experience of the European Parliament, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, does. The Commission loves to stray well beyond its remit into giving its opinion on many things in the world and is likely to do so. Through the Committee of Ministers mechanism at the Council of Europe, we should be able to ensure that there is some sort of balance and that we do not get into a position where they are both looking at the same thing. There is quite a clear job to do, and I am sure that resources are scarce. I spent 10 years on the liaison committee between the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. There was constant jealousy in the Council of Europe at our budget-raising powers and the fact that the Parliament could raise its own budget, whereas the Council of Europe of course had to negotiate its. None the less, no one has doubted that the European Court of Human Rights has not only the competence but the skill to give the requisite opinions and judgments on human rights issues. We need to be careful that those two are not mixed up.

One common factor of course with all three agreements is that they relate to the scenes of frozen conflicts—Ukraine is, sadly, now in that category of frozen conflict. I think the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, made the point that areas of frozen conflict could leak into the association agreements. I have to tell your Lordships that they can. I was in Moldova, not recently but not that long ago, and it was quite clear that it is part of Moldovan policy to try and bring Transnistria back into the body and that anything that can be done to pursue that aim is done, including encouraging it to export through Moldova itself. So we have to be careful there. We also have to be careful of the integration between Moldova and Romania. There are certain people in Bucharest who see Moldova as being little different from Wales, in terms of it being a country on the fringe that has self-government but which is basically still part of us. We need to keep an eye on that.

We also have to be careful about how the agreement is implemented. The beginning of the recent crisis in Ukraine spun out of the botched way in which the European Union handled the association agreement. That is how it is to my mind, although I know that that is not a universal view. We did not handle it as cleverly as we could have. We have ended up with a president in exile, although I notice that within the past few days, former President Yanukovych has made statements to the effect that he is thinking about going back, so we need to be careful about how we implement this. I am not saying that we should not sign and implement the association agreement, but we should not use it to antagonise—that is the danger.

I do not know whether the Minister met the Georgians who were here a few days ago, but it was quite clear that part of Georgian foreign policy, not unnaturally, is to try and use favourable reflections from Britain and western Europe in its constant battle against Russia and the countries that surround it. Georgia is a rather special case because it neighbours Turkey. The others are very much more in the heart of Europe.

My final point is that if we are going to have peace on this frontier in the end, we need a comprehensive agreement and settlement with Russia. There are too many potential conflicts: look at Latvia and the Russian population there. My own priority, for what it is worth, is that the Baltic states are covered by Article 5, and we must make sure that they stay at the top of our list before we take on any other commitments that we cannot honour. That is crucial. We should not get ourselves into a position where we are giving guarantees or understandings that we know in our own heart we cannot honour. I think that, more or less, we have gone as far as we can. I agree with the President of the European Commission that the time is not right for the extension of Community membership. We have probably bitten off more than we can chew; we certainly do not have the capacity for any more.

Historically, Britain has always been in favour of extending Community membership. One group of people has said that as good members of the European movement—which I am, too—we want to extend the benefits of Europe across Europe. But there is another school of thought, among the anti-European group, which has said that the more we can get in, the nearer we can bring it to collapse. That group also has a point. We have now got to a tipping point where we need to concentrate on integrating the European Union and its near abroad, in a sensible manner, to the not-so near abroad beyond it, whose countries are certainly not candidates for membership in anyone’s cognisance at the moment. These orders are part of that process.

I welcome the orders and I hope that they will be implemented and monitored with the moderation that the Minister’s speech has indicated. I look forward to us giving them our support.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister for her clear explanation of the orders. I do not intend to say very much on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition. We support the orders and are happy to do so today. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. There is a degree of expertise in the Committee that will make this debate look important when it is considered by others outside Parliament.

My first point is one that the Minister mentioned. The countries involved in these association agreements have to have free choice as to whether to reach such agreements, but the opposite is also true. No country should be forced to enter into such an association agreement, but on the other hand, nor should any free and sovereign state be pressured into not doing so, whether by force of arms or by other forms of intimidation. We are therefore content that the countries that we are talking about today are in the position that they find themselves in with regard to these association agreements.

Of course, as the Minister said, our debate takes place against the background of the unfolding situation in Ukraine, and I thank her for keeping us up to date with the position there. The House has debated the extremely critical situation in Ukraine many times in various forms, and will undoubtedly do so again. I hope it does so soon, not least so that the report that the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned—The EU and Russia: Before and Beyond the Crisis in Ukraine, published by the European Union Committee, on which he sat and which received a lot of media publicity earlier this week—can be debated, too.

Today’s Motions are not a reason for holding another debate on Ukraine this afternoon, although the comments that have been made about Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have been extremely helpful, for me at least, in setting the background to where we are. The other two countries, Moldova and Georgia, as has been made clear, have considerable difficulties of their own. They have parallels, but their situations are of course different from the critical one we all face in Ukraine at present.

On Ukraine, we all hope that the ceasefire agreed in Minsk a fortnight ago now on 12 February, which was due to begin on 15 February, 11 days ago, can be properly implemented. Can the Minister comment on today’s reports, which have not necessarily been confirmed, that both the pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian army may be starting to withdraw heavy weapons? Apparently, as of 1 pm, Ukrainian military forces had suffered no fatalities in the previous 48 hours, although several soldiers have apparently been wounded in that time span. A buffer zone of at least 50 kilometres has to be created and monitored by the OSCE, so I was particularly interested by what the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, had to say about his recent meeting at the OSCE. Can the Minister comment on those matters?

Some have claimed—the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, came close to it—that the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine has been something of a provocation, at least in part, in terms of the proxy war in eastern Ukraine. The argument goes—the noble Lord put it moderately and well—that the EU, in negotiating such an agreement, sort of poked the bear with a stick, which is one way of putting it, and that signing such an agreement was an act of recklessness by the EU. We do not agree with that analysis. When the House of Commons debated these matters last December, there was a general consensus that this was not the case. The EU association agreement with Ukraine was not rushed in any way. It was not a surprise or a provocation. As I understand it, it had been under discussion for seven years and, interestingly, had been supported by the previous pro-Russian leadership of Ukraine under the last president, to whom the noble Lord referred.

The whole point of such agreements is to give a country access to the European market in exchange for reforms that encourage a democratic, honest and legally robust framework for that country’s future. The point of these agreements is to give access to European markets in exchange for reforms. Given Ukraine’s economic and corruption problems, reforms in the direction of transparency, the rule of law and proper democratic accountability are of great importance. That is the path the present Ukrainian Government want to pursue, but they will of course need considerable help.

Middle East and North Africa

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating this most welcome debate. I also declare a long interest in Turkey, stretching back politically over 30 years, so I will start my speech with a word about that country.

There are many misconceptions. First, there seems to be a misconception that the problems between the Kurds and the Turks are of recent origin; they go back at least to Ataturk. Indeed, the present Government in Turkey have initiated discussions with the Kurdish population that have gone some way to solving at least some of the outstanding problems. We must remember that the PKK is still listed as a terrorist organisation by the US, the European Union and NATO as well as by Turkey itself. That therefore adds considerable problems to how Turkey deals with a number of the problems on its border, particularly the problem of Kobane.

Let us be clear: the Turkish Government have spent some $4 billion on aid for refugees in this conflict. They have allowed 200,000 citizens of the Kobane region to come into Turkey to live. Carol Batchelor, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Turkey, was recently quoted as saying that, when it came to saving lives,

“the UN could not catch up with Turkey”.

They have, in other words, done extremely well with the cards that they have got.

Saving Kobane is part of a much bigger and widespread problem. The present Prime Minister, who was Foreign Minister, and the present President, who was Prime Minister, have both addressed this in great detail. One of the problems that Turkey has is that it seems to have made an enemy of absolutely everybody. It has crucially made an enemy of President Assad. I think that we have to start being realistic about Syria. President Assad presided over a regime that was—shall we say—suboptimal, to be kindest about it. None the less, the country was a damn sight more stable then than it is today. People were not being killed in the streets. It is going to survive because it has the support of Russia and Iran; in the present mix-up in that area of the world, President Assad, I predict, is going to come through in the end. It is in our interests to look at that area and see what we can do to try to help Turkey to get back on good terms with the regime in Syria.

I now turn to another subject in the region, and that is human rights. I know that the Minister has recently received a letter from the TUC—I know because it sent me a copy of it—about the human rights situation in Iran, particularly the rights of trade unionists and workers in Iran. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the Government propose to respond to that letter, because it seems to me that we have a different view of human rights: it really depends on who is violating them, does it not?

If you look at the British papers, you will see quite rightly the absolute outrage over recent beheadings. We all share that outrage, but somehow the newspapers avoided mentioning—maybe they mentioned it on days I did not read them—that more than 100 people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia within the past 12 months. I am told by the Foreign Office that it makes quiet representations to Saudi Arabia about this, but those are not doing much good, are they? The Saudis are not taking much notice of these representations. We need to look a little more clearly at having a consistent view on human rights and the way we put our human rights case forward.

In short, we cannot rest back on applying a Treaty of Westphalia system to the rest of the world—that is, the system where you say, “Well, countries can do what they like within their borders. If we recognise them as a legitimate Government, they can go round beheading people and do what they like. We won’t intervene”. We cannot do that any more. We do not do it in the European Union. Given the amount of attention that we pay, quite rightly, to human rights in Turkey, it is ironic how little attention we pay to the same subject in many states not that far to the south.

In closing, I suggest that the situation may change in a way we did not really anticipate. The energy scenario, which has of course driven our relations with that part of the world for the past 100 years, is rapidly changing. Many people have not noticed that the United States is no longer a net importer of energy. Many people have not noticed—or, if they have noticed, they have not tied it together—that new technology and the rising price of energy makes it easier to recover energy. The discovery of new energy fields such as the one off Cyprus, the advent of fracking and the developments in physics—I declare an interest as a governor of the pension fund of CERN, which is the major physics laboratory in the world—will probably put the energy crisis behind us in the next 20 to 30 years. That might sound rather astonishing at a time when we are concentrating on it. Of course, this is not a debate on energy, but from all I have heard and seen the energy scenario is changing faster than we realise. As it changes, the need and dependency on the near and Middle East will change significantly to a point where, maybe, we can have some consistency in our approach on human and civil rights, so that we can look forward to a time when we might be able to stand a little taller because we adopt the same principles in dealing with all countries in that region.